Grey nodded slowly and looked around as he thought. "Yeah. I know the feeling." He muttered under his breath and stood up. He took a deep breath of stale air and let it out in a whoosh, looking a lot better. "I know my therapist wouldn't be happy with me bottling everything up right now, but I'd like to see her handle this calmly. We are unpacking this further once you're in better shape." Grey grinned down at the aged mascot. Grey grabbed his flashlight and jumped down to a mostly clean section of the floor with a grunt. "Well, would you mind showing me around the place? I've barely seen our home and have a lot to think about, so I think now's the perfect time to add more to my thoughts." Freddy watched in pure bewilderment as the stranger continued to confuse him. Time and time again he should have ran, whether in surprise, fear or just outright denial of responsibilities. Yet he just took it all in and moved on as if dinner plans had changed instead of learning of a new life form. Then again, he was just a bear with little knowledge of the real world so it was entirely possible that discovering new types of life were normal these days. Freddy shook himself from his wandering thoughs and limped towards the door at the rear of the room. As Freddy reached the door, he looked back at the smiling man following like a- no, exactly like his father before he abandoned everyone. Freddy grunted as a spark of hope and a tinge of respect ignited in his long cold chest. "Finnne. Followww me." He finally said as he turned to guide the first guest in over a decade.

...

"Where does that go?" Grey asked, poining to the blocked off door at the back of the old server room. Grey noticed the bear avoiding looking directly at the door and mentally moved getting in there to his top priority.

"Just aaa basmmment storage. Pprobably moldyyy aaand dangerousss." Freddy said, his voice box acting up more than usual. Grey had figured out that the more his voice broke, the more emotional the bear was or he was trying his best to lie. Freddy motioned to the still intact ancient server racks with a rotted paw and made a kind of grunting noise. "This is your besttt shot at retrieving dattta."

Grey nodded as he looked over the racks, particularly the partially mangled one baring the door of importance. "I just hope that one wasn't important. Looks like it was used to keep something big in." Grey commented idly, as if it held no further implications. This had been the last stop on the tour and along all their travels the had not seen any of the other band members. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he heard Freddy's servos whine in protest behind him, almost definitely trying their best to convey the bears disapproval.

"Ddon't you toyyy with meee, boooy." Freddy growled though Grey just chuckled. Calling Grey "Boy" was the only thing Freddy could reasonably get through his filters to call the annoying man, though it only seemed to encourage him further.

"Then let's skip the fanfare, Big Bear. Help me get this door open so we can see what's left of everyone else." Grey said as he crossed the room and began looking closer at how the rack was wedged against the doorframe. Freddy wanted nothing more than to refuse and remove the infuriatingly persistent man and avoid anything to do with his past and this door, but he couldn't refuse a direct order from a higher up. His programming kicked in hard after a moment of fighting against it, forcing him to take stuttering steps forward until he stood in front of his greatest tangible fear. Together they worked the bent rack free of the door with minor damage to either and slid it to the side. Grey grabbed the handle and heaved opened the door on long rusted hinges. The steel squealed against the floor as it hit the warped floor, foul stale air wafting out of the long sealed tomb.

Grey grabbed his flashlight from where he had set it on the floor to illuminate the room and pointed it down the stairwell. Freddy watched in tense silence as Grey let out a low whistle. "Damn Bonnie, you've seen better days..." What was left of Bonnie half stood at the bottom of the stairs, one bare metal arm frozen outstretched towards the door as he leaned against a stack of crushed boxes. He was tattered, his faux fur moldy with most of it below his knees completely missing. His other arm was barely recognizable, twisted and battered as if having lost a fight with a truck. His face was visibly fractured, even from the top of the stairs, making his dark plastic eyes seem sunken and hollow.

Grey could see that the floor looked dry and didn't see anything weird in the air. He turned to look at Freddy and gave him a gentle smile. "How about we go save your family." He told the visibly upset, quarter ton bear

--

The time had ticked by slowly down in her dark solitude as she daydreamed of happier days and watched her life drain. She had wanted to move in her final moments but had found her joints had seized up from years of not moving and over a decade of no maintnence. There were a couple moments her nonexistent heart skipped a beat when she thought she had heard vehicles, though she never heard the tell tale signs of a break in or swarms of teenagers looking to vandalize. So she settled back in to enjoy her last hour of life.

'Just 5 more minutes.' She thought, a pang of emotions hitting her hard. 'At least it's almost over. Maybe I'll even get to move on after this. I guess that'd be nice.' She mentally sighed and looked up at the ceiling. Just then she froze, fear, hope and anger hitting her harder than a cannon as she heard the door screach open on the other side of the room. Her eyes snapped to the stairs and were immediately drawn to the light of a strong flashlight roaming across her friends' corpse. Before she could even formulate a thought, she heard a voice.

"Damn Bonnie, you've seen better days..."

An adult. It wasnt a bunch of teens looking for something to destroy and he even knew who they were! Why couldn't he have come an hour ago, even just twenty minutes! Fifty two seconds left of battery. She frantically started shutting down nonessential systems to try to buy just a little more time and gained nearly a minute to her ticking clock. As she focused on the stairs again, she could see the figure at the bottom of the steps looking at Bonnie closely. She tried to speak but got nothing more than a very quiet hum from her voice modulator. If only she had used it at some point, if only she could-

And then he saw her, and they locked eyes. They stared at each other for what felt like minutes before she finally thought to blink at him and tried to move her fingers, only getting a twitch from her rusted digits. The last thing she saw as her battery died was the stranger with a stunned look on his young face. But she was happier than she had been in years.

Man I suck at trying to do anything consistently. Well, heres another chapter for anyone whom might still care lol. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and new year. Anywho, thanks for reading as always, peace for now.